CLEARWATER - Grammy-winning artist Fiona Apple is touring in support of her first album release in seven years. Apple brings songs from The Idler Wheel and her summer tour to Ruth Eckerd Hall Saturday, Sept. 29, 8 p.m.

Special guest, Blake Mills will open the show.

“Apple’s first LP since 2005 is full of cold truths and her most raw music yet,” said Rolling Stone. “Throughout, Apple sings amazingly, wringing different colors from her voice in every song.”

The New York Times’ Jon Pareles praised The Idler Wheel … as “a collection of stripped-down, percussive songs that’s as passionate, smart and cutting as anything she’s done” in a Sunday “Arts & Leisure” cover story. “Ms. Apple writes metaphor-laden outpourings set to music that pulls rock, show tunes, classical piano and jazz into her own realm of brooding and bravado.”

Vulture.com called The Idler Wheel… “magical” and Entertainment Weekly awarded it an “A,” observing: “this is an album that will make you stay up late, playing each song over and over, trying to answer the questions it stirs up…Like Apple herself, it's highly confessional and creative and temperamental, and will probably make you fall crazy in love.”

“She doesn't simply push herself vocally; she embraces the role of the contortionist, the strange expression, the note that might make someone turn away,” said NPR Music, which gave fans a “First Listen” to the album last week. “She also sings beautifully at times. It's a mix, reflective of the tangle she's trying to unravel — thought itself.”

SPIN pronounced Every Single Night, the album’s first single, “a revelation” while MTV’s Buzzworthy hailed the accompanying video, directed by Joseph Cahill, as “bizarre, whimsical and a bit unsettling.” The clip can be viewed at www.fiona-apple.com.

Apple made her debut at age 19 with 1996s Tidal, which is certified triple Platinum. Rolling Stone named her Artist of the Year in 1997 and in 1998 she won a Grammy for Best Female Rock Vocal Performance for one of the album’s singles, Criminal. When the Pawn…followed in 1999, and was hailed by Entertainment Weekly as “the work of an original.”

In early 2005, fans organized a massive “Free Fiona” letter-writing campaign, insisting that her label release the long-delayed follow-up album, Extraordinary Machine. Released in the fall of 2005, Extraordinary Machine was named the top album of the year by The New York Times, which called it “magnificent,” and was awarded four stars by Rolling Stone, which praised it as her “strongest and most detailed batch of songs yet.” Five years later, Extraordinary Machine earned a spot on Rolling Stone’s “100 Best Albums of the ’00s” list, underscoring how her work continues to resonate powerfully.

Reserved tickets priced at $75.50, $57.50 and $51.50 are available at the Ruth Eckerd Hall Ticket Office located at 1111 McMullen Booth Road in Clearwater, by calling 727-791-7400 and online at www.RuthEckerdHall.com.